set the fire to the third bar
by InnocentGuilt
Summary: [sparrabeth]elizabeth was a living testament to why guilt and pirates just didn't mix.


**"Set The Fire To The Third Bar"****by Snow Patrol**

_I find the map and draw a straight line__Over rivers__, farms, and state lines__The distance from here to where you'd be _

Teardrops don't find there way to the table anymore. They don't even know the way out of her heart anymore. Tia has long since taken it out of her to react the way she ought, so she just sits when her heart aches. She sits because when she tries to walk, something happens.

The rum is a constant staple in her hand these days, as is the blank and cold void in her eyes. The crew doesn't say anything, nor does Will. They fear the biting words that fall like poison from her chapped lips. She isn't bitter, but she can't love them anymore. They all found out. They all know that she chained him down to the mast, to his goodness, to her. They know, and so they stare at her; she isn't a picture. She isn't the sweet, innocent Miss Swann that Barbossa still loves to call her. She's Black-Ribbon-Lizzie. She's a pirate. She's a murderer, and to make it worse, she's the murderer of her only love.

She pulls the map out from under Barbossa's table, ignoring the man that watches her from his chair at the other end. He has nothing he can do for her, so she'll do it on her own. She pets the monkey, Jack (Not her Jack. It's a constant stab to her heart.), and takes the quill, dousing it in the dull red ink.

Where he is, isn't on the map, so it isn't be a conventional course they take, but it makes her feel so much better to have that jagged line (it's tearing the paper, causing little rolls of parchment to gather and move around under the tips of the quills), stretching from wherever she is on the map running off the edge, to uncharted waters that she can't even imagine.

"Miss Swann?"

Her hands are shaking, that's why he's calling to her. They're shaking hard enough to make the line so sloppy is looks like the course they're taking is trying to dodge the very fingers of God. It looks so beautiful to her though, and she does it again and again, tearing a whole straight threw the map, and scraping the dark mahogany wood beneath it.

"Miss Swann." Barbossa asks again.

The metal tipped quill is shaving the wood, but it's not dying it with the red that she wants it to. Her entire body is shaking when she picks up the bottle of beautiful crimson ink, sloshing it onto her fingers and staining them. Staining them… like Jack had stained her. She pours it delicately into the messily carved wood, getting angry when it's sloppy. She tries to steady her hand, trying to pour it like she wants to, but only succeeding in getting so angry that she takes the jar and flings its contents across the room.

"Elizabeth!"

_It's only finger-lengths that I see__I touch the place where I'd find your face__My__ finger in creases of distant dark places _

She takes steps backwards, away from the macabre blood red line streaking from the table onto the ground to sprinkle ghoulishly across the wall like blood, dropping the ink canister to the dirty wood floor. That's where he is, at some unknown place on the wall. Still walking back she moves her hand up to the air, the hand that had been holding the ink well. She spreads her thumb and forefinger apart to where her thumb is touching the map, where, she imagines, she is, and putting her finger on the very last drip of red liquid, where Jack is, in her mind.

It's not so far. She thinks it's only finger spaces. So why isn't she with him? _Why can't she touch him?_ She can feel her entire body shaking, as she moves further and further back, the space between her fingers getting smaller and smaller, until her back is against the wall. But there's still space between her thumb and finger. She stares at the metaphorical space between her and Jack. It's so close! She bangs her back against the wall, trying to back up further, only to realize that the wood won't budge.

It won't budge?

"Elizabeth, please?"

It won't budge because that would only ever be as close as she could get to him. He was dead. She had killed him. Her blank eyes won't leave the place in between her fingers, which she has only just noticed are red. Red, like blood.

Blood? His blood?

Her hands shake even worse as her mind tries to remember why her hands are red, red, like blood. They weren't always like that. When did that happen? Why? Why?

"What's wrong with me?" She screeches, holding her hands in front of her body like they've betrayed her. Why are they red? Why is his blood on her? Her breath comes harder and harder, and her face is turning red. Why is this happening to her? She can't cry though, and she can't sit. She can't be still with these evil appendages attached to her body. "WHY?" She yells loud enough she can hear footsteps running to find out what's wrong with her.

She wipes her hands on her clothes, trying to get it off her, but the still semi-wet ink just soaks into her white shirt. She looks in horror at the mess she's covered herself in, and slides down the wall. She's still shaking, and her breathing is labored, her eyes dilating to where there's almost no difference between her dark brown iris's and the black of her pupil.

His blood is on her hands, and she tells herself it's because she killed him.

_I hang my coat up in the first bar__There__ is no peace that I've found so far _

She stares at her petticoat, so close the end of the spattered ink on the wall, but not touched by it.

Barbossa is moving to her, his boots have stepped into the red ink on the floor, tracking it across the room, and coming closer and closer to her. The others have come to stare at her again, watching her as she shakes on the ground. Will, and Mr. Gibbs try to do something, but the sight of her shaking like a whelp catches hold of their sordid fascination.

She feels a chill settle over her. She killed Jack! Her stomach is churning violently. Why? Why did she do it? They touch her shoulder, trying to shake her out of this hell, but she's locked her self in. She's trapped her mind in this broken mantra, the mantra that says, 'you killed Jack.' She opens her mouth as if to take a great breath, the refill her lungs, but she can't and the only thing she can do is choke on her own tongue. Her bloody hands clasp her neck, trying to force her to breathe; she just can't.

"Elizabeth!" They're yelling, even Mr. Cotton's bird.

She's sweating; it runs down her face. She can't see properly anymore; they've all turned into blurs, and her mind is warping them into demons that have come to stake her, like the witch she is. But she still isn't crying. She claws at the wall behind her, now, trying to escape further away from her mind.

"NO!" She screams as their claws grasp her all over, strangling her, and closing off her airway. She twists and wreathes under them. Her eyes are sealed shut. She can't see them! She doesn't want to! It's too hard. It's cruel the way their gray hair, darkens, and knots into dreadlocks as it gets so long. It's cruel how their hollow, blue eyes turn glistening black. How they all turn so tan. Why is this happening?

Why are they all turning into Jack?

_The laughter penetrates my silence__As__ drunken men find flaws in science _

Their words of concern turn into twisted chuckles as they all laugh at her. Her worst nightmare come true, his blood on her hands and all he can do is laugh at her.

Her hand bangs against the ground, as if it's the reason life is doing this to her, the reason Jack's gone, or the reason she can't breathe. They touch her, feeling her forehead, (they think she's feverish), they grab her arms, (holding her down from hurting herself further.), they're killing her. Their hands burn her skin, leaving red marks all over her, through her clothes.

She kicks at them, trying to free herself from these demons. "Stop!" She yells.

But they don't; they try even harder to forcer her down. To be quiet!

_Their words mostly noises__Ghosts with just voices _

Slowly her eyes slip closed, and her head rocks around on her shoulders, though she feels one of their deathly burning hands rest on her cheek to steady it. Her hands that had been scratching on the floor beneath her, the wall behind her, the people in front of her, fall to the floor limply. She is too exhausted to continue screaming, and, as her body relaxes, her breathing evens out.

'Find her a warm rag!'

'Get to the bed.'

'Keep her under constant surveillance.'

The voices fade in and out, her head still being held in place as she's picked up by her shoulders and beneath her knees. She doesn't try to help them, she can't. She is just too tired. She's tired and she doesn't remember why. She doesn't remember her red stained fingers, so much like blood. She doesn't remember the map. She almost doesn't remember herself.

But she remembers him.

Him and the mast.

_Your words in my memory__Are__ like music to me _

"Pirate." He whispers to her as she slips further and further into unconsciousness.

Little Governor's daughter, Miss Elizabeth Swann, had become a pirate. Black-ribbon Lizzie. Slowly becoming the most ruthless, dangerous, and potentially craziest pirate to sail on the seven seas.

"Pirate."

Piratepiratepirate! Damn it! She had not wanted this. She was going to marry, to be happy and simple. He turned her into this. He had spoiled her and her simple mind. Even with he first words, he had poisoned her mind with fantasies.

And then she had killed him. Him and his goodness, and been ruthlessly hung for the entire world to see.

Finally, her eyes loll to the back of her head, and delicious nothingness overcomes her. No pirates, no ships, no rum, no maps, no blood…

…No Jack Sparrow.

Only the empty stars hovering in the back of her mind.

_I'm miles from where you are__I lay down on the cold ground _

Somewhere in her deep slumber her mind begins to fabricate dreams.

The island. Oh, she had forgotten the island. The rum, the fire, and the way he had touched her. She had almost felt woman in his arms. She had been like a woman, not a lady, or the governor's daughter. Not the prospect of a wife. She was just a woman in a man's arms.

It was so warm, she remembers, dancing around the fire in her undergarments, the sea breeze picking up the smell of their love, the ocean the true unknown. She had almost wanted him to take her then for the sheer fact that unlike anyone she had ever crossed before he knew what she wanted. He knew what she craved.

How could she have… the mast…the betrayal…

His death.

She twists violently in her dreams.

His blood!

God, in heaven above her! What had she done?

What…what had she…what had she done?

Hands grab her by her waist, and she's brought back from her nightmare, her body stilling in the touch of his calloused, strong, fingers. The warmth is back, the warmth not provided by the fire. They keep jumping around the fire, singing so horribly out of tune it's only apparent that they must be drunk.

_I, I pray that something picks me up__And__ sets me down in your warm arms _

He stops her from jumping and singing, grabbing her by the waist and bringing her down to the ground with him. There he presses her into the sand, staring into her eyes with the passion she had almost forgotten about. He smiles, his teeth, rotted, gold, perfect, shining in the bright fire light that cast shadows across both of their bodies, casting them in a perfect allegory of good and evil.

Running his fingers over her lightly, his calloused fingers meeting perhaps even rougher material of her undergarment, he graces small kisses against her jaw, and neck. The fire jumps as she tilts her head up, arching her back to press her stomach into his hand, demanding more contact,_ needing more contact._ His smile becomes humored.

"_Why, Lizzie…?_"

_After I have traveled so far__We'd__ set the fire to the third bar__We'd share each other like an island__Until exhausted, close our eyelids_

Jack kisses her roughly, with only the passion a pirate could muster.

_Pirate…_

She's almost whisked away again, but it feels so good to kiss him again. It feels so good to have him push her against something in an almost painful manner. His hands rub against her arms, her breasts, waist, hips, pushing the fabric of her slip up, further and further, exposing more and more flesh of her legs and arms. Her breathing hitches every time he touched a new span of skin, skin she hasn't dreamed of anyone ever touching. She watches him, his eyes dark, but glowing in the blazing firelight, his face completely entranced in her and the demure story her body tells him. She can't resist in helping him read more. She can't resist in defiling herself more to the pirate…to become more of a pirate. She can't help unbuttoning her dress.

One by one her buttons push through their holsters, exposing just a little more of her chest to him. She watches his breathing become tumultuous, his smile growing as he too helped unbutton her slip. When the coarse fabric is undone, the entire front of her body exposed to him, save her shoulders which the fabric hangs on very loosely to, Jack leans in, again pressing savory kisses to her skin, the skin of her chest. His lips gather up sweat, sand, and ash from the island and their fire, as his hands push the offending fabric from her shoulders, over her elbows, and off of her hands. She is completely his, her body belongs to him as his lips clamp over her left breast, his hands exploring ever bit of flesh that he had been deprived of earlier.

"_Jack!_" She calls out.

Her hands pull at his shirt, demanding it be off of his torso at that very instant. Leaving the nub that had been in his mouth, he leans up taking his dirty, white shirt off over his head, shedding firelight on his dark tan stomach and chest. He immediately dives back in for Elizabeth's right nipple, while she plays with the muscles that flex in his back, the muscles that jump at her touch.

She touches everywhere she can, and he has no shame in doing the same to her. He moves his mouth from her right breast to her stomach, lazily kissing his way down, while she messages his pectorals, his abs, his sides, anywhere, moaning his name as he does hers. The fire inside of her intensifies when he delves his tongue into her navel, somehow hitting an intense pleasure trigger, and she moves her legs, noticing how slick the motion has become.

Her hands slip and move down in the new wave of ecstasy washing over her, and she grazes down his breeches, feeling a rigid length pulsing beneath her fingers. Jack groans, against her skin, now so close to where not even she has truly explored. Pulling away from her he undoes sashes, belts, and empty holsters, throwing them all away from him before pulling his breeches down, finally showing his entire body to her.

_And dreaming, pick up from__The__ last place we left off __Your soft skin is weeping__A joy you can't keep in _

Elizabeth has no time to enjoy the sight before her eyes before he attacks her, pressing a breath-stealing kiss to her mouth, demanding entrance as he collapses to the ground beside her, pulling her to sit across his bony hips, letting her feel exactly what she is doing to him, and what he will soon be doing to her. She grips his shoulders eagerly, hot and bothered that he does nothing but kiss her, though the kiss is enough to set her body off in frenzy she can't control.

He pulls his mouth away from her pulling her bottom off of him with one hand, while doing something behind her with the other. She watches his every facial expression, loving the way the fire cast a shadow over the left of his entire body. He lowers her hips again, angling her to where she leans over him just a bit, and she feels something at an alcove she had never known could be filled.

He presses her down on it with ease, the liquid that he has tortured out of her coating her well enough. She doesn't feel like she's easing, however, and gasps with pain when the rigid length of him presses as far as she'll naturally allow.

"_Ow!_" She whimpers. He doesn't stop there as she thought. Jack bucks his hips up quickly, forcing through the block, sliding himself fully into her.

Elizabeth switches her eyes to where they're connected; feeling erotic euphoria close over her mind as she experimentally moves, causing an unsavory pain, almost stopping what she's doing, but Jack won't let her. He grabs her hips, pulling them up and down, still causing pain, but lessening with each thrust his penis enters her.

Jack watches her carefully, looking for a moment when an angled pulse finds something that triggers pleasure in her. When finally, she releases a blissful moan, he grins in a feral manner, working to angle his hips so they would make her moan over and over and over again.

Repositioning them onto her back, where he hovers over her, he continues to drive into her, forcing harder and harder, until she screams, losing herself in the mindless pleasure that washes over her, relentlessly. He has more self-control though, and kept going longer and longer until…

"_God, Lizzie…_" He moans her name into the air, his head thrown back in ecstasy and he pumps the last of his warm liquid into her.

Panting he lets himself fall out of her, falling to her side and stroking her hair back. She scoots closer to him, her undergarment still partially under her and still partially buried in the sand, and rests her head on his bronze chest. She can feel the sand in her hair, and when she looks up there's sand in his, but she wouldn't have it any other way.

Chest still heaving, but nowhere near as tired as she thought she would be, she sighs, running her hand over his arm. "_I missed you Jack. I missed you and this island…it's so hard away from here._"

"_This island is nothing too grand._" He murmurs.

She lifts her head up from his heartbeat, looking into his gleaming, fire lit eyes. "_What do you mean?_"

"_This here __be__ limbo._" Jack says.

She shakes her head confused. "_Limbo?_"

He nods, refusing to look into her eyes. "_What God wants pirates, Lizzie, love? And what Devil wants what could easily take the false kingdom he built?_"

"_So, we're dead?_"

She says this as light begins to enshroud her, and Jack begins to dim. The feeling of his firm chest is removed from under her fingertips…no longer red.

No longer red.

_I'm miles from where you are__I lay down on the cold ground__And I, I pray that something picks me up__and sets me down in your warm arms _

She's startled awake, taking a deep breath as if she had been holding her breath for minutes on end. Looking around, she finds old, Mr. Cotton by across the room, leaning his head back against the wall, asleep. Her heart goes out to him for the trouble she'll cause him in the not to distant future, but she knows where Jack is. She knows where she needs to be.

Her mind set, clear, focused, she carefully clambers out of bed, her bare feet hitting the creaking wooden plank unsteadily. She watches Mr. Cotton all the way to the door, preparing to make a drunken dash away. She stumbles out of whatever room she was in, still dizzy and drunk off of the high her mind left her in from the meeting and the fit she had had before that, and fell onto the deck. She stumbles to her feet, sure someone has heard her, and hides behind the closest door she finds.

Behind the door, is a steep set of stairs into the cellar of the rickety, dying ship, and she wastes no time in descending them, feeling the sick slosh of water and goo squish between her bare toes. The wood creaks beneath her weight, the old ship reaching it's end with every second they force it to carry cargo. She sees the useless things that some of the sailors will try to sell at port, if ever the _Dragon_ makes it to port again, the revolting sea life that made it's home in the moist wood and some in the water. She sees rare spices, skeletons of creatures she can't name…

…and rum.

Further she creeps; suddenly she's steady on her feet now that she is so close to the ocean… the ocean and Jack. She feels the boards bending beneath her feet, softened with the years she had been to sea. She smells the salt, searing her nostrils and preparing her. She pulls the black ribbon out of her hair and wrapped it on the canvas jar above her.

_Thump!_

She jumps.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

It bends more and more with each bounce, so her attempts become more ferocious, desperate.

Desperate to get away from this pit of hell!

She forces dead weight onto her feet, not caring how much it hurts.

_Thump! Thump! Thump! _

She hears, feels, the wood groaning, giving, not used to this beating as the other occupants have always been so skittish around here.

_And miles from where you are__I lay down on the cold ground _

And finally…

Finally…

_and__ I, I pray that something picks me up__and sets me down in your warm arms_

She runs in to his arms, her lungs burning from the ocean she's just crawled out of. "_Jack! Jack, don't let me wake up! Don't let me go!_"

"_You won't be __wakin__' any time soon, love. You'll be with me for a while._" He sooths her wet hair from her face, wiping away tears that mingle with the droplets of the ocean they both love so much.

&$&$&$&$&

InnocentGuilt


End file.
